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Talk:Magdalena Rodriguez
You know, I've often wondered about Hip's electrocution. It was written in HT's typical "this character is dead" style. Was HT just screwing with the readers, or did he abruptly change his mind and decide he still needed Hip. TR 20:46, November 20, 2009 (UTC) :Hmm, interesting. I always assumed HT was screwing with us. I had read spoilers for VO that gave a complete list, or claimed to, of POV characters who died and the manners of their deaths, so when Hip got zapped I said "What the FUCK?!?!" and flipped ahead till I saw him come up again. And Hip never really did anything really necessary after that point; Pinkard had Determination covered, and we'd already seen how the Freedomites insuated themselves into the Hispanic states. Turtle Fan 21:24, November 20, 2009 (UTC) ::I'd seen those same spoilers. I was surprised, but I opted not to flip through on the theory that Hip was a newer POV, whereas the others had been around since AF, and maybe the reviewers just didn't care as much about Hip. :::I certainly didn't--care about him, that is. Wouldn't've been sad to see him go, but I do insist on completeness, so. . . . :::Actually that was the first 191 book for which I sought out online spoilers. For whatever that's worth. Turtle Fan 23:47, November 20, 2009 (UTC) ::It's worth remembering that HT's view of what is "necessary" in his narrative is very different from our own (see our grumblings about HW). Personally, I felt Hip was "distinct" enough in his experiences that he was useful. Yes, Pinkard handled the administration, but Hip did the dirty work, so that was interesting dichotomy for a while, made more so by the convergence of every other POD on Tennessee and Georgia that took place after Hip killed himself. TR 22:09, November 20, 2009 (UTC) :::I was always so annoyed by the way Hip behaved in the camp. People talk about Pinkard's great moral downfall, but, while he didn't seem like Rudolf Hess the minute he was introduced, he never really had any claim on a strong moral character that we saw to be corrupted. Hip on the other hand, much as I disliked him, had a good thick streak of decency, and I kept waiting for him to be outraged at what he was doing. So I waited, and waited, and then he's like "My God, what have I done? Better off myself and make room for Jorge!" in one breath. (And yes, TG needed all the characters it could get who weren't accompanying Morrell's push.) :::Where was the Confederate outrage? Obviously the US had had a certain moral advantage over the CS from the beginning of the series, but the people on either side of the border weren't that different from one another; in the end they're all just folks. I couldn't swallow the CS characters' consciences being so atrophied that even the best of them supported genocide, while the US characters are so virtuous that, after a short while of saying "Fuck off, Flora," they're every one of them so outraged over what the Rebs have been doing that it causes them to forget completely that they themselves have been racists for sixty years. :::Re HW suggesting HT has different ideas about what's important in a novel: I'm not so sure. I just can't imagine the author of the Worldwar books, RB, most of TL-191, Krispos, Gerin, and his other excellent works, looking at the final version of HW and saying "Man, this is a great book!" The only explanation I have for it is that he got lazy. Maybe in his mind he thought Chamberlain growing a pair would make for a kick-ass AH novel, but after he'd signed the contract he decided it wouldn't make WWII look all that fundamentally different after all, got bored with it, shat something out and mailed it in to fulfill contractual obligations. Certainly that's speculative, and not without its problems, but can you really picture HT putting forth a major effort at creativity and HW being the result? Turtle Fan 23:47, November 20, 2009 (UTC)